


In Your Arms

by sister_pumpkin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And Harry gives her one, BFFs, Harry and Ron are good dudes, Hermione Harry and Ron are bffs, Hermione needs a hug, Hiding stuff from friends, McLaggen is a dick, No Romance, Nonconsensual kissing, Panic Attacks, Parvati and Padma are homies, References to inappropriate touching (guy on girl), love these guys, no romantic relationships, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 07:39:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16760839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_pumpkin/pseuds/sister_pumpkin
Summary: Hermione is in her sixth year at Hogwarts, gryffindor prefect, top of her class, and yet nothing can protect her from the cold she's now feeling all the time after his touch invaded her comfort.“Hermione what do you think?”“Hm?” she blinked blearily, looking up at the two boys, then down at the map. She shrugged her shoulders.“What’s with you, Hermione? I was kinda counting on you to snap Harry out of it this morning,” Ron nudged her shoulder but she shivered away, pulling her sweater sleeves tightly over her hands.





	In Your Arms

“I swear it!” Harry shouted at Ron, and after receiving a few unwanted glances toned down his voice a little. “He was here in this hallway,” he pointed at the Marauder’s Map, “And then he just disappeared.”

“Yea right,” Ron snorted. “You’re saying this was last night? C’mon Filch would’ve had a field day, there’s no way the bloke just vanished.”

Harry scowled, “I swear, it was like he just stepped into the wall or something.”

Hermione simply rolled her eyes, poking her fork at her scrambled eggs. It was much too early for this Draco nonsense.

“Hermione what do you think?”

“Hm?” she blinked blearily, looking up at the two boys, then down at the map. She shrugged her shoulders.

“What’s with you, Hermione? I was kinda counting on you to snap Harry out of it this morning,” Ron nudged her shoulder but she shivered away, pulling her sweater sleeves tightly over her hands.

“I-uh…was studying late last night.” 

“I don’t know how you do that every night.” Ron shook his head, but Hermione was no longer paying attention to him. The faint scent of cigarette smoke had wafted past her as a couple of the sixth year gryffindor boys walked behind her.

The bench screeched and she jumped away, grabbing her bag. 

“Hey, Hermione where-“

“I’ll see you in Potions!” she quickly interjected before she was out of the Great Hall and running into the nearest bathroom.

\------

“Hermione!”

“What!” she jumped, nearly dropping her book into the open fire in the Gryffindor common room.

Harry held up his hands. “Whoa sorry – I called your name nearly 5 times.”

“Oh,” she pushed a piece of her straggling hair behind her ear, curling tighter into her armchair. “Sorry, Harry. What’s up?”

“You want to walk to Slughorn’s together? It’s in 15 minutes.”

That’s why he looked nicer dressed than normal. She would’ve thought it strange that he was actually following a dress code, but she knew that Harry was trying really hard to get on Slughorn’s good side. She sighed, repressing the shudder that racked her body, pulling her arms in tighter as if she were near an open window instead of a fire. She couldn’t go to another one of those parties. That’s where he’d be. That’s where he was, where he sat next to her, where he offered to walk her back to her dorm-

“’Mione?”

She glanced up at Harry’s furrowed brow. “I-“ she cleared her throat of the wobble that threatened to break her down in front of her best friend. He couldn’t know. He’d tell Ron and then they’d both leave her again. They’d hate her and see her as the weak small human girl that she was. She couldn’t do that. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t weak… “I can’t.”  
She saw he was about to ask another question and she burst out, “I have homework!!” Heat flooded to her cheeks and she looked down at the book in her hands, avoiding the glances of other gryffindors in the room. “So I don’t think I’ll be able to make it tonight. But I think Ginny is going tonight, so you could maybe walk with her.”  
She felt his eyes on her, lingering a bit too long. 

“Hermione-“

“I’m ok!” she whipped out her best fake smile. “I’m just tired so I want to get this done so I can get to bed at a decent time.”

He nodded, but didn’t look totally convinced and she was afraid maybe he’d try and ask another question. Instead he stood up awkwardly and gave her a small smile. “Alright. Well, good luck with the studying.”

She gave him a small wave and he turned and walked out through the portal. She sniffed back the unwelcome sting of tears in her eyes, quickly hiding her emotions from the few 4th and 2nd year Gryffindors lingering about. The lies had worked too well. She didn’t want him to know, but she also wished that her best friend would have been able to see through her thin lies, that he would stay and pull her into his arms and tell her its ok, and that she could tell him anything-

No, stop. She thought. It’s all only a fantasy. They see you as the smart one, so dammit be smart, Hermione! She shook the thoughts away and squeezed back the tears, and zoned in on the text still sitting open in her lap.

\------

What if she had just said yes? 

His handsome eyes gleamed down at her, but he was just a bit too close. She tried smiling awkwardly and pulling away, but he was strong. Much stronger than her. A spike of panic. But she laughed it off. 

Who knew how he would react to direct opposition…

He took a deep inhale on the cigarette and flicked the butt onto the ground, the swirls of smoke disappearing into the night air as he exhaled. 

He had kept begging. And begging. His cute little smiles thinly veiling his passive threats as raunchy flirting. I mean, he’s not entirely bad looking, she tried to justify. She could just say yes and get it over with. No risk of violence. No risk of future problems. Right? 

And then her body acted of its own accord, not waiting to hear her response and she was reaching up and pulling him into a deep kiss. Before she could reject it she was lying on the cold ground and his weight was on top of her, his tongue deep in her mouth. His hands travelling farther than they had the last time, and suddenly she was more naked than she had ever been before a man.   
And she decided to enjoy it.

Hermione gasped awake and the nausea hit her. She scrambled to the bathroom but before she could turn on the lights she was vomiting on the floor, McLaggen’s face in her mind. She could smell him. She could taste him – she coughed and heaved out even more of yesterday’s food. Her breath came in pants, her body trembling from the physical exertion as her weary brains still tried to catch up to the moment. She had resisted his requests. She had not enjoyed him pushing the boundaries. She had not wanted it. Fuck her brain for suggesting an alternative ending like that. The betrayal of her own mind brought tears to her eyes.

“Hermione is that you?” 

Light suddenly flooded the bathroom and Parvati and Padma were looking awkwardly down at a very shaken Hermione, sobbing desperately in a pool of her own vomit. Her body only trembled more as she realized people standing there and another big sob racked her frame. Padma was instantly at her side, shushing her soothingly and pulling Hermione softly into her arms while Parvati spoke some spells, cleaning up the vomit and sour smell from the air.   
\-----

Hermione was feeling good today. She had scored over a hundred on her last exam and she finally aced her potion earlier today in class, much to Slughorn’s, and her own, delight. She munched down on a sandwich happily as Ron stuffed an entire half into his face and Harry poured over his stupid Potions text, idly fingering his food.

“Hey girl!” 

Hermione glanced up as the brightly smiling ginger sat down beside her. “Hey Ginny. How’s it going?”

“Ah ya know. McGonagall kicked our asses in Transfiguration today. Though it was totally worth it to see the Slytherin kid Nick accidently transfigure his shoes into cockroaches instead of his quill into a truffle like we were supposed to. The pandemonium was fantastic.”

They all laughed, Ron spitting out chunks of his sandwich, then turning bright red when Ginny laughed at him for it. “Any ways,” she continued. “How’re you feeling today, Hermione?”

A burst of cold air seemed to pass through her sweater right at that question and she shivered. “What do you mean?”

“I heard you were sick a couple nights ago, though you do look a bit better today.”

Hermione shot a brief glance up at Padma and Parvati, sitting a bit farther down the table, chatting animatedly with Lavender. “Yeah I’m feeling better.” She put down the rest of her sandwich, the memories of that night chasing away her appetite. 

“ ‘ou ‘ere fthick?” Ron asked through another large bite of his sandwich.

Hermione, fidgeting with her sandwich, she bristled at all the sudden unwanted attention. Even Harry had his attention pulled away from where he had been glaring holes into Draco Malfoy’s back across the hall. She normally would be pleased that her friends were finally asking her how she was, instead of obsessing over a stupid rich boy from Slytherin. 

Except no, she didn’t ask for this attention. There was too much noise, there were too many people, there was no place to hide, and it was so damn cold. Her cheeks were flushed red and she felt the trembling starting in her hands, she could feel their eyes on her face, caressing down her sides... She jumped from the table with another loud complaint from the bench for the second time in two weeks. “Yes, I was sick; yes, I am better now.” Frustration and embarrassment giving her words an angry snip. Desperate to divert some of the attention, she snapped, “For Merlin’s sake Harry if you’re going to stalk Draco all the time the polite thing to do would be to ask him out first!” She snatched her bag from her seat, and rushed away, the hot tears threatening to make an appearance. She rubbed them out of her eyes but suddenly smacked right into someone much taller than her. 

“Whoa there gorgeous, why such a rush?”

She froze and the air around her seemed to drop 20 degrees. The ground was cold, his breath was warm with smoke – her sweater wouldn’t be able to protect her from his wandering fingers.   
Without even looking up at him she stepped past him, but a strong hand landed on her arm. “Oh girl, don’t be so rude. Look at me.”

She hesitantly looked up into those same dark sparkling eyes. Her breath stopped in her throat. Her stomach churned, threatening to reject her partially eaten sandwich.

“You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, ‘Mione. Don’t you trust me?”

No! her mind screamed.

“You should wear something nice to Slughorn’s tonight.” He leaned in closer and every nerve in her body screamed at her to jump away, but she was frozen by his cold touch. “You have such a nice body, you should show it off a bit more,” he whispered, giving her a small wink. 

She didn’t exactly remember leaving the Great Hall, everything seemed to happen in fragments. Steps flying by under her feet, blood rushing through her veins, air refusing to get into her lungs, her surroundings a dizzy array of cold and grass and smoke but stone and bathroom stalls, it was all happening too fast, and she was so cold and it was just too much, too much, too much.

A hand touched her shoulder and she flinched away. She wanted to scream for help but nothing came, no one was coming for her, she was all alone, alone with him, he was going to hurt her this time-

“Hey, Hermione, it’s ok, you’re safe, you’re in the girl’s bathroom - it’s Harry. This is the bathroom where we made the Polyjuice potion and you turned into a cat, remember? Moaning Murtle is normally around here, but it’s ok you’re safe, no one is going to hurt you, you’re safe, just breathe – “

Harry? No he couldn’t be here she was outside in the dark, in the cold, trapped with Cormac McLaggen. 

“Hey hey hey, whoa it’s ok just try to match my breaths okay? I’ve got you, its safe…” 

She registered the slow rising and falling of someone’s breathing. Why were they breathing so slow? She couldn’t seem to get in any air. Disoriented, she shakily pulled in a deep breath though. Slowly, feeling started coming back to her hands trembling against her knees and to the rest of her body and eventually her surrounds began returning to her...she was curled into a ball…on the cold hard stone…of a…of a bathroom? And that voice…it was familiar…Harry… everything started piecing back together in her mind and oh shittt. She was having a panic attack in front of her best friend on the floor of a girl’s bathroom.

“I’m sorry,” she burst into tears, because she had distracted him from his own problems, and now he’ll think she’s weak and maybe he’ll leave her and she’ll be even more alone...

“Hey,” he touched her shoulder, forcing her to look up into his eyes. “We’re best friends, Hermione. You have nothing to apologize for.” 

“But, you must think I’m so weak, I was such a damn fool….”

“No, I don’t think anything like that.” He shifted and moved so that he could wrap his arm around her shoulders and she sank gratefully into his chest. “You are one of the strongest and bravest people I know. Ron and I would be so lost without you, and I’m sorry that maybe we scared you away from telling us what was up.” 

There was a pause as they both sat there, feeling each other’s lungs rising and falling. This is a safe place, a voice in Hermione’s head whispered. And it’s true, her heart rate had calmed down a lot, and she continued to bask in Harry’s words of affirmation. But the memories and anxiety continued to eat at her and she mindlessly began to pick at the skin around her fingernails.  
She shook her head with a sigh. “It was after one of Slughorn’s parties. You and Ginny weren’t there, I think it may have been something with Quidditch, I’m not sure…He didn’t even really do anything….” She took in a shaky breath. 

“It was McLaggen, wasn’t it?” Harry asked, his voice tense. “That’s why you ran out of the lunch so fast.” 

She gave a small nod and she felt his muscles tense up, but quickly relax so as not to put her more on edge. “It just…he offered to walk me back to the Gryffindor common room and it seemed innocent enough. I was stupid was all…he took us through a scenic route and we ended up outside because he wanted to show me the stars…I just wanted to go to bed but I didn’t want to upset him…” She felt something wet between her fingers and she glanced down, seeing the bright red blood now painted around her fingernails. “I should’ve resisted and said no…”  
She could hear the increase in Harry’s heart rate. He hesitantly spoke up. “Did….he…?”

“No,” she said, “Well not really, I mean...I don’t know…. He didn’t rape me if that’s what you’re asking, so really what happened was nothing, I was just stupid and I’m making too big of a deal out of it…”

“Deep breath,” he whispered.

“Right, yeah,” she laughed nervously. “He had been talking about some of the rough things he’d been going through lately, and like I felt bad for him, and he had smoked like three cigarettes by this time, and I don’t know, like I’m smart, but I’m not very good when it comes to flirting and stuff so maybe I lead him on…”

A tear slid down her cheek almost before she knew her eyes were burning. “He was just so much stronger than me.” She hated the way her voice cracked and she could almost feel Harry’s expression darkening but she couldn’t stop the wave of all the words she’s been holding back for the past month. “I was scared because I didn’t want to make it worse, so I only resisted as much as I dared, but I froze up when he pushed me onto the ground and I had to let him…let him kiss me and feel around my waist and he didn’t do anything worse so its so dumb and silly but I can’t stop thinking about what if he traps me again and I don’t know what to do and I freeze up again because I didn’t know what to do I just convinced him we should go back to the common room but I can’t get that lucky again and he’s bound to try and I’m so so stupid and I couldn’t protect myself and it turned me into this mess and oh God I’m so sorry Harry –“

He enveloped her in a bear hug before she could continue with her babbling and she tightly hugged him back, crying into his robes. “No, Hermione, I’m sorry.  
“I won’t let him touch you ever again.”  
\-----

She joined Harry and Ron for breakfast as usual, sitting down in the chattering mass of students, the clinks of silverware against the plates echoing in the Great Hall. She gave them a bright smile, and this time it was genuine. She took a swig of pumpkin juice but nearly spat it out.

“Harry! Ron! What happened??” 

They seemed to remember then that they were both sporting busted, swollen lips, and Harry a black eye. They ducked their heads down in embarrassment, but it was far too late to try and hide whatever injuries they were sporting. 

“It was uh…” Ron stuttered, looking desperately at Harry.

“A quidditch accident,” Harry said.

She squinted at them, watching as Ron’s ears turned bright red as he nodded along with Harry’s statement. “I thought there was no quidditch practice last night.”

“The two of us, we went and just practiced ourselves,” Harry said. “We kind of ran into each other ‘cos it had gotten rather dark, and yea. Here we are.”

“Why didn’t you go to see Madam Pomfrey?”

“It’s nothing bad, no big deal.” Ron shrugged.

Hermione shook her head, taking a bite of her toast. She didn’t believe a word of it, but decided to let it slide for now since she was in a good mood. As they worked through their breakfasts in silence, however, her ear picked up bits of conversation between Parvati and Lavender, who weren’t sitting very far away.

“…Last night,” Lavender was saying. “It was late, and I heard echoes of a fight in the hall outside our common room.”

Parvati gasped. “Who was it? Did you see??”

“Well I opened the door and peeked around the Fat Lady, and it was just one bloke, punching around and shouting at someone, but no one else was there. He seemed a bit loony so I quickly came back inside and went to bed.”

“Oh my,” Parvati said. “some people must be really struggling in their classes.”

“You’re one to talk, Parvati! You’re practically failing Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“Everyone is practically failing that class…..”

Hermione tuned out the rest of the conversation. A single bloke, fighting the air, or something invisible… She looked up again at her two best friends, tears threatening to overflow. “A quidditch accident, huh?”

“Uhhh ‘eah?” Ron mumbled through a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

“You boys are far too loyal to that sport,” she smiled.

“Well we want to make sure we do good for the team,” Harry said, smiling at her. “They’re basically family.”

Her heart burst with warmth, and she nodded. “Family.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! This is my first fanfic and hyped to see what you all think. This is honestly just me projecting my own experiences and problems onto Hermione. It's the only therapy I can fit in my schedule right now lollll. *cries* Anywho please leave any comments - all constructive criticism is welcome!! Good luck with finals!!


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